What makes a new song a folk song?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 06:24 AM

True Rob, I like many here may introduce a song as "traditional" or that it was written by, or I wrote etc but as it is all folk, saying "folk" would be somewhat superfluous.

We lemmings number in the millions you know... Good job Michael and Jim are doing their David Attenborough bit and commentating on where we all go wrong. (Actually, Jim was off interviewing a cuckoo and finding out why we misunderstand about where they park their arses, but no matter.)

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 06:48 AM

Jim, your opinions are of no value to me.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 07:45 AM

"Actually, Jim was off interviewing a cuckoo"
No need to go "off" anywhere, when you're doing such a good job of displaying their behaviour here - 'cuck-oo'
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 08:14 AM

I feel my music has been under attack from traddies for the last fifty years. I can't think of anyone apart from me, who plays Blind Lemon Jeffersons Matchbox Blues in the style of Hamish Imlach.

I understand that you don't think it has any value. But this music only ever existed in the English folk clubs -it has no other home.

When you watch that Acoustic Routes video made by Billy Connolly. made 20 years ago - you realise how many of the old guard have gone - Bert, Davy, Brownie McGhee, Hamish, John Martyn,

when its gone I hope you will feel proud of all the scorn you have poured on this great flowering of English folk music. and your part in expelling it from English folk clubs.
You'll still be able to open a ringbinder, or switch on your kindle and sing unaccompanied songs. I don't see any of the future generation who really understand the complex relationship that guitars had with folksong for our generation. well done - you destroyed it.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 08:27 AM

"this music only ever existed in the English folk clubs -it has no other home"
,,..,

But that's coz u-lot came & squatted in our folk clubs, and, as squatters will, began to self-delude; & then try to spread the delusion that they were your clubs.

Why, I asked as far back as one of my Taking The Mike columns in Folk Review back in 1973, when Ian A Anderson admitted that the folk clubs were the 'only recourse for the singer songwriter', did he & his mates not go & establish some SingerSongwriter clubs where they could have sung their old *Abe Lincolnish stuff to your ❤❤❤' content, without destroying what we had so painstakingly built up? But answer came there none...

≈M≈

**"People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like." Abraham Lincoln in a book review

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 08:42 AM

u-lot came & squatted in our folk clubs

Are they yours, though, Michael? They might once have been, but things d/evolve. There are folk clubs round here set up and enjoyed by people who enjoy a mixture of acoustic rock, singer songwriter, Americana and traditional folk. They never sought to be anything except what they are. They certainly weren't victims of a hostile takeover. I suspect Al would be welcome and it wouldn't even cross people's minds to question whether or not his music was folk.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Will Fly
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 08:46 AM

For those who are convinced that the provenance of a piece of music is more important than its substance, let me offer you the following challenge:

Let me sit down with you and play you three instrumental pieces from a "set" - three pieces which you had never heard before. There are many thousands of tunes playable in sessions, and it's unlikely that you would know them all.

How would you tell, just by listening, whether any of these tunes was (for example):

1. A traditional melody of unknown provenance
2. A melody from the pen of a 19th century fiddler such as James Hill
3. A melody from an obscure 18th century tunebook with a mix of known and unknown composers
4. A modern melody written by a known composer such as John Kirkpatrick or Andy Cutting

I defy you to label them. The only judgements you could surely make would be subjective - whether you liked the pieces or not, whether you had opinions on the execution, etc.

The answer, of course, is that it doesn't matter a jot. There are many, many composed tunes old and new - with a known author - which sit quite happily and absolutely seamlessly with tunes for which there is no known author or for which there may be many sources. Tunes are played in sets at communal session week in, week out. They're played in sets for dancing by countless ceilidh bands all over the country - week in, week out, for weddings, birthday parties and other functions - with hundreds of participants, some of whom may never have heard the tunes before. And who, frankly, may not care as long as the dance is enjoyable.

So, this thread, for all its fire and wind, has been concerned with just one aspect of folk music - song. And songs are bogged down and weighted with a mass of cultural, historical, social and verbal baggage which very often obscures the beauty or otherwise of the music. As Nigel said in an earlier post - just enjoy the bloody music (or words to that effect) - lose the baggage.

I'm aware that the thread title is "What makes a new song…" etc. But the thread has widened from that to encompass "folk" as a genre of music. Except that it hasn't - it's dealt solely with folk (or otherwise) songs.

So what of the three tunes? How would you place them - and does it matter to the musician or the listener?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 08:50 AM

I was writing, Guest, if you will look, of the time when they were 'ours': before the singer·songwriting Dylanalike mafia moved in & made to squeeze us out. What they might subsequently have become is not germane to my point about what happened then; up to which time, yes, I reaffirm, they had been our clubs.

So, I ask again, why did it happen?; rather than the JoniMitch-clones et al, finding their own field instead of squatting on our bailiwick?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 08:54 AM

But the musician & the listener are not the only people involved, Will. What about scholarship, just for starters, to advert to one other possible interested demographic?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 08:59 AM

"The answer, of course, is that it doesn't matter a jot."
If you are involved only as a singer or musician, of course it doesn't matter.
If you are involved in the other implications of the music, it matters a lot.
If you are involved in both, you have to do a double-take when moving from one to the other.
MacColl, Lomax, Lloyd, Mike Seeger, Bob Thomson.... and a whole bunch of others had a foot in both camps.
Many of us came in as singers and broadened our interests to both -
the clubs were a door into a whole new genre of culture for us, that door has pretty well closed now.
Even as a point of simple logic - our music has been documented more widely than virtually any other musical form, yet that documentation no longer applies to the clubs - acculturation has taken place with one cultural (documented) form being displaced by another basically undefined and undocumented form.
Surely, from the point of view of advancement of the music, this cannot be right.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 09:05 AM

"If you are involved only as a singer or musician"

And there's the rub.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 09:16 AM

Right then, you lot are only singers and musicians;
and as for you audience, why you're just passive recipients
of whatever the prevailing pop fad of the minute is...

So move along out the way all of you
and let us real Folk experts attend to the business that really matters...


errrrmmm.. of course I'm exagerating for flippant sarcastic effect.....

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 09:20 AM

Presumably the librarians can start a 'reformed" folk club..

😎

There's only one folk camp. Over in the field to your left is protest song, in the middle field we have contemporary love songs, the paddock over yonder has modern songs about modern lives and issues and perched on the midden where we can all hear it crowing is traditional song and tunes.

The paddock near the road is out of action till the court orders come through due to a diddycoy camp. One of the cockerels from the midden was last seen running down there with a tape recorder.
😆😆

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 09:33 AM

Musket's trouble is that he fancies himself as a satirist, tho he isn't really much of one; so what results is embarrassing facetiousness, often marred by wilful épater les bourgeois obscenity or outright personal bloody rudeness, masquerading as some sort of serious argument.

YMMV -- his obviously will. But that, FWIW, is how I all-too-often perceive him & his contributions to debate & discussion.

When he cools it, and really does try to be serious for a bit, he is often worth taking account of.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 09:42 AM

MGM·Lion
But there is no denying that every single radio DJ, on any channel, in the 60s-70s would keep introducing records with "And here's another from the King of Folk, Bob Dylan", & such locutions. That's when it all started. & still round & round goes the bloody great ☸

Nope. That's not when it started as illustrated by my link above which everybody ignored. Here it is again -
Progressive folk

Perhaps I should have put in a quote from it -
The original meaning of progressive folk came from its links to the progressive politics of the American folk revival of the 1930s, particularly through the work of musicologist Charles Seeger.[1] Key figures in the development of progressive folk in America were Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, who influenced figures such as Bob Dylan and Joan Baez in the 1960s. All mixed progressive political messages with traditional folk music tunes and themes.[2]

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Will Fly
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 09:44 AM

But the musician & the listener are not the only people involved, Will. What about scholarship, just for starters, to advert to one other possible interested demographic?

So are you saying, Michael, that if you identified one of my three putative tunes as a modern, composed melody, it wouldn't be worth considering per se? What have the scholars and musicologists to do with a tune about which they know nothing? Can we musicians not play it because its provenance isn't known?

I'm trying to make the point that folk song is invested with a lot of baggage - baggage which can destroy a love of music for its own sake. This thread is proof enough of that!

Still no proper answer.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 09:49 AM

MGM·Lion - You are without doubt Mudcat's equivalent of Gandalf or Dumbledore.

I might often not agree with, but I certainly hold you in high esteem.

My family were only factory and manual workers,
but they brought us up to respect learning and vocabulary..
Which probably accounts for how I got to grammar school.

In fact when I was a student I discovered that sociologists referred to folks like us
as the 'respectable / civilised working class'

Though our culture was definitely not folk music of any kind.........


Now back on topic, I'm glad you guys took my folk degree essay quip seriously.
Because if I were a lecturer on that course
I would certainly use threads like this as contextual material in seminars !!!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 10:13 AM

Jim Carroll
At least one tutor connected with the Newcastle Course was deeply involved in the early days of the revival, as a singer, songwriter, instrumentalist and as a researcher and teacher of traditional song techniques.
Her daughter is also a very fine, well known singer.

Yes, we've booked them both several times to give workshops and evening performances. I wonder what they do the rest of the time since, as Jim would have us believe, there are no other traditional clubs in the country.

Folk and Traditional Music BA Honours
Folk and Traditional Music. Curious.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 10:44 AM

Thank you, pfr. One does one's best. Do not demean your own consderable achievements, which are very impressive.

Snail: I didn't state that was where it all began; but that the 60s "Dylan·King·of·Folk·Music" syndrome was when it really caught on over here; when by a sort of folk-music version of Gresham's Law, the bad drove out the good.

Not that it was bad, exactly. Just different. So I ask again why it had to set up its mansion in the bit that we had pioneered, instead of establishing a milieu of its own for its practice.

Still puzzled as to that. Al, above, eg, seems quite happy that "folk clubs are the only place" where his sort of music can be played. Well, why? How excruciatingly feeble of them to have to squat from the start in someone else's patch instead of clearing one of their own.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 10:53 AM

In the interest of balance, I dont hold Michael in high esteem.

There again, I notice the grammatical blunders and lack of knowledge of English. For instance, confusing "traditional" with "folk" where one is merely a subset of the other.

Satire? I thought it was fly on the wall?

If one does ones best, could one do ones best on this thread for a change?

🚸

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 10:58 AM

"of course I'm exagerating for flippant sarcastic effect....."
I can see that!!
You're also doing an 'Al' in suggesting that one should b regarded by anyone as 'superior' or 'elitist' - if a musical form can't allow for all levels of interest it is is short sighted and eventually self-destructive.
he turnaround in Ireland came when the arts establishment eventually took traditional music seriously - took a long time and came about by researchers and singers/musicians came together and lobbied for arts and government support.
Nobody is going to support a music that is little better than third-rate pop-tribute acts.
If some of usbehaved in the knuckles-along-the-ground childish manner people like Muskie have we'd have deserved the 'folk-police tag - he now appears to be adding 'folk Gestapo' to his 'Yob folk' image
Give it a rest Muskie, we know your a thug without your having to over-stress the point
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 11:06 AM

"the turnaround in Ireland came when the arts establishment eventually took traditional music seriously - took a long time and came about by researchers and singers/musicians came together and lobbied for arts and government support."
nonsense, Comhaltas started to get money in the sixties over 50 years ago to promote traditional music, nothing to do with the arts establishment, more to do with friends in government, why do you continue to speak half truths and rubbish, .
the turnaround in iReland came when CCE were able to put on national fleadhs which not only promoted tradtional music but provided local economies with financial help. I DONT PARTICULARLY LIKE THE COMPETITIVE NATURE OF CCE, but is just untrue to try and pretend that they made no contribution to the promotion of TRAD MUSIC, to a lesser extent the willie clancy week had done so as well,and none of it had anything to do with the arts establishment.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 11:08 AM

If you are going to accuse of grammatical blunders, Ian, you had better be a bit surer of your ground. The instance you allege, were it indeed erroneous which it isn't [except in typical Musketry-style ?-beggary], would in no way be grammatically, but semantically, based: a typical catachresis on your part, on which you charceristically essay to base a futile-from-the-outset argument. You are actually no more competent in disputation than you are in satire.

Still, carry on. I am a bit loose-endy today, and your pertinacious knicker-twistings are obligingly affording me considerable entertainment.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 12:17 PM

There are many, many composed tunes old and new - with a known author - which sit quite happily and absolutely seamlessly with tunes for which there is no known author or for which there may be many sources.

Absolutely. And if folk song had developed in the same way - if new songs were being written which could sit 'seamlessly' in between The Banks of Primroses and The Plains of Waterloo, or between Rigs of the Time and Hard Times of Old England, then we wouldn't be having this discussion. It has happened to some extent in the older-style clubs - in singarounds I hear a lot of songs (by people like MacColl, Tawney, Dave Goulder, Sydney Carter, Martin Graebe and Graeme Miles) which are recognisably new songs in a traditional idiom.

The resemblance only goes so far, though - very few contemporary songs have the story-telling structure which is so characteristic of trad songs, or for that matter the subject matter (big on death, heartbreak and unwanted pregnancy). I worry sometimes we're ending up with the worst of both worlds - an evening of songs that sound too 'folky' for punters off the street (all those big choruses!), while at the same time being too warm and fuzzy for anyone to actually sing very many traditional songs. (Litmus test: how would I feel singing Two Pretty Boys next?)

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Will Fly
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 12:33 PM

And if folk song had developed in the same way - if new songs were being written which could sit 'seamlessly' in between The Banks of Primroses and The Plains of Waterloo, or between Rigs of the Time and Hard Times of Old England, then we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Interesting comment, Phil - and begs the question whether such songs exist but aren't given any credit.

We had a band from Kent at our "club" (for want of a better word) last Monday. They've been going for over 40 years and one or two of the members have written songs which have been absolutely accepted in clubs all over the country - also for around 40 years. A couple of months ago we had Roger Bryant from Cornwall drop in to a local singaround and - naturally - we had a rousing chorus of "Cornish Lads", which you'll find in the Mudcat Archive here. You'll also find it referenced on the Cornish culture website - sandwiched between "traditional" songs...

So where does one draw the line?

The problem with shoehorning a song into becoming a cultural construct is that the actual song as a piece of music gets lost in the baggage. Thank heavens tunes are so much more immune from all that.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 12:42 PM

"in singarounds I hear a lot of songs (by people like MacColl, Tawney, Dave Goulder, Sydney Carter, Martin Graebe and Graeme Miles) which are recognisably new songs in a traditional idiom."
that is because in a melodic sense they are restricted to a few modes, it is a genre which is going to go nowhere, it is limited musically, it refuses to take on influences from other traditions[how many songs are written using the hijaz scale, for example].
Dave Goulder is the one person who has experimented with using a different mode for a song [the walrus and the carpenter]
"very few contemporary songs have the story-telling structure which is so characteristic of trad songs"
an over simplification there are plenty of tradtional songs, there are plenty of trad songs that have little story structure, martin said to his man [a very old tradtional song] ,greensleeves, the water is wide. benjamin bowmaneer,the cadgwith anthem holmfirth anthem
FURTHERMORE some contemporary songs have a story telling structure,. the Black Fox,1649,Sreets of london.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 01:17 PM

"nonsense, Comhaltas started to get money in the sixties over 50 years ago to promote traditional music"
And virtually ran Irish music into the ground with its diddly-di approach, its politics and its competitions.
It remained where it was and the leading influence in Irish music because its director managed to get himself appointed to the senate and manipulate the purse strings in favour of its own organisation.
That grip was broken by the setting up of The Willie Clancy Summer School, forty years ago, which rejected Comhaltas's political and competitive advances, and the setting up of The Irish Traditional Music Archive which was in no way influenced by C.C.E.
Up to this point, musicians could not find pubs which would allow them to play and some of Ireland's leading musicians have described how, when they went to C.C.E. classes, they had to hide their instruments under their coats for fear of having them damaged by their schoolmates.
Changed in a period of around five years.
In Britain, C.C.E. were renowned for driving many young people out of the music because of the competition ethos - got a number of them on tape talking about it.
Around 1975, The West London Branch of Comhaltas was expelled from the organisation for refusing to take part in a political fund-raising scheme - ask Ralph McTell - he was a member at the time.
The 2000 report on the state of Irish music made by Larry Murphy was laughed out of court and made the national headlines - a beauriful satirisation of it was published in The Phoenix Magazine
Comhaltas my arse - still competing away with its wannabe Riverdance girls in wigs and green dresses, for the glittering prizes
"Nonsense" just about sums it up.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 01:25 PM

Why does mudcat so often put me in mind of classic Victorian and Edwardian adventure novels
where Gentlemen amateur scientists fall out over a public dispute
at a great lecture hall or club;
then issue one another a wagered challenge to 'put up or shut up'.....

"I say there does exist a high lost plateu deep in the forest
where living folk songs do exist and still reproduce,
as if the modern world was but a mere dream.
They are not extinct !!!
In this small sack, I have the proof.
With all due respect, doubt me if you dare you blithering fool, sir!!!
.. To be Continued.."

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 01:37 PM

You got the semantic one, but I can't give you full marks as you missed two other glaring ones meducks.

Jim. Adding Gestapo to goose stepping (I can't remember how to do it without a caller shouting out instructions)is rather funny. I assume your comments on racial purity are as a result of being driven out to have to be a refugee in foreign lands eh?

For anyone bored enough to be following the thread, goose stepping means recognising folk as a genre, just like the rest of the world does, musically speaking.

The stick I am getting for a) saying it and b) taking the piss out of absurdity isn't quite good enough yet. Keep 'em coming. Plenty more before your horlicks and tablets kick in eh?

🎼🎶🎶🎵🎹🎹🎻🎺🎺🎸🎷🎷🎷.                🏁




And now a warning for those of a nervous disposition. Sad old men will try, not very successfully to make you look small for the heinous crime of disagreeing with them. The fact that they have no clue of the subject of folk is irrelevant. They reckon they have street cred in traditional music, as indeed they did once, before getting confused over a genre of music that their hobby is a small but slightly significant part of.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 01:43 PM

"nonsense, Comhaltas started to get money in the sixties over 50 years ago to promote traditional music"
And virtually ran Irish music into the ground with its diddly-di approach, its politics and its competitions.
It remained where it was and the leading influence in Irish music because its director managed to get himself appointed to the senate and manipulate the purse strings in favour of its own organisation.
That grip was broken by the setting up of The Willie Clancy Summer School, forty years ago, which rejected Comhaltas's political and competitive advances, and the setting up of The Irish Traditional Music Archive which was in no way influenced by C.C.E"
the grip has not been broken you silly old fool, it unfortunately is thriving, for god sake come out of your ivory tower and recognise what is happening, all this crap about money from the arts, you are a blithering old toothless sabre rattler.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 01:50 PM

"For anyone bored enough to be following the thread, goose stepping means recognising folk as a genre, "
You've said this enough times to be simple lying now Musskie
It means slagging off old people for being old and deliberately using racist terms - maybe originally to shock, now it's got to the point of just trying to block half-decent discussion
You infantile behavior really has got beyond aa joke, as has your persistent dishonesty
Grow up, for ***** sake
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 01:59 PM

"the grip has not been broken you silly old fool, it unfortunately is thriving"
Not in the real world
It held a series of six weekly dance sessions here last month - the first this year, now finished.
It has very few of the many schools and week-ends in Ireland despite the fact that they are sprouting up like mushrooms.
It may still have political influence, but as far as the music is concerned - dead in the water.
Oh - nearly forgot - you talentless moron - since that's the way you choose to make your inane postings (or does that put my coming to West Cork a dangerous venture - was thinking maybe we'd spend Christmas there - just checking the bullet-proof windscreen!)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 02:09 PM

MGM·Lion
I didn't state that was where it all began

No, you said -
That's when it all started.

I pointed out that it started in the 1930s under the influence of Charles Seeger. (Note the name. This is not a coincidence.) Dylan and his contemporaries were the inheritors of that "milieu" and for many, that was what "folk" meant.

A lot of people seem to be more concerned about the word than about the music.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 02:46 PM

Bryan. Stop saying agreeable things eh? I know how Bridge must feel now reading my posts...

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,puinkfolkrocker
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 02:52 PM

Ok... found it, can't resist posting it...

Not intentionally aimed at any one individual here.
It's just too good a find not to post.

Simply to be regarded as 'contextual material'.........


Tape Recorder Man

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 04:41 PM

jim, it is you that is a talentless moron, post some clips of yourself to prove otherwise.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 04:48 PM

in the beginning was the word.....

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 05:16 PM

Will: We had a band from Kent at our "club" (for want of a better word) last Monday. They've been going for over 40 years and one or two of the members have written songs which have been absolutely accepted in clubs all over the country - also for around 40 years.

And I was at an Open Mic in Devon last night where one of the young guys who normally plays in a rock trio did a solo acoustic fingerstyle song he wrote very recently, which was so excellent that (as someone noted way up the thread) "I wanted to learn it immediately". Never heard him do it before, but it too has the potential to be "accepted in clubs all over the country" IMO if people pick it up and run with it. I'm learning it myself at the moment.

I've "propagated" Bob Kenward's "Dr Syn" and "Man of Kent" into Devon where at least 2-3 people have picked them up, and I'm already seeing "the folk process" working on them in terms of slightly different tunes (hell, *I* sing slightly different tunes to the ones Bob wrote) and a few lyric alterations.

All these songs have the "story telling structure characteristic of trad songs".

Will: I'm trying to make the point that folk song is invested with a lot of baggage - baggage which can destroy a love of music for its own sake. This thread is proof enough of that!

Absolutely Will....the close-mindedness and prescritiveness which I see on many of the threads here sits totally at odds with the open, welcoming attitude and sheer "joy in music" that I get at the clubs, sessions and open mics I go to!Can't believe it's the same people (actually, it probably isn't :-) )

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Will Fly
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 05:34 PM

Hi Rob - where was the open mic, out of interest? I was playing at the Teign House Inn near Christow on Sunday afternoon. I've done Bradninch and Whipton in previous years.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 07:08 PM

dr syn - do you know the hammer horror classic Catain Clegg or in america - the night creatures?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 07:46 PM

If we're ever in the same session, Rob, you won't hear any denunciations or even mild expressions of disapproval from me. (In fact I've never heard them from anyone, anywhere - the Folk Police really are a myth.) I love the music and enjoy it intensely. The only reason I care about labels is that - as I said back here - I love some kinds of music much more than others. I'm just here to defend one of my very favourite kinds of music (which is called folk) from being confused with a kind of music which I can take or leave at its best (and which is also called folk).

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 07:51 PM

calling you a talentless moron is absolutely unforgiveable.

you are not a moron. you are a fine musician.

but i expect you know all that.

Jim at some point - try to understand - shitting on people and abusing people with whom you have petty disagreements about the nature of folk music is counter productive for all of us.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 09 Oct 14 - 08:02 PM

Get a grip, Al - Jim specifically said he was throwing in that gratuitous insult because it's the way that GSS posts ("silly old fool" being his most recent piece of sparkling wit). If a single putdown from Jim is "absolutely unforgiveable", God only knows what kind of condemnation GSS has racked up in his repeated attacks on Jim, in this and other threads.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 03:07 AM

Get a grip Phil.

I have been called a goose stepper, Gestapo, irrelevant, hater of folk music and lots more besides by Jim on the basis of laughing at his absurd notion that if you can copyright it, it isn't folk or if it doesn't fall into some weird 1954 category, it isn't folk, even though folk music as a genre took off after the committee had adjourned.

It is my reactions not my origins that are called boorish.

Music is fun. The UK folk scene has and hopefully always will be an outlet for home grown talent and an arena for those who wish to share their love of music regardless of their own prowess. To say that a folk song isn't folk because Martin Simpson wrote it or because Jim doesn't have a 1/4" reel of an old diddy singing it is preposterous.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 04:10 AM

"on the basis of laughing at his absurd notion that if you can copyright it,"
Stop lying - you have been clled those hings because you have behaved like a blustering thug - I don't give a toss what you believe, it's the way you have behavedmakes you what you are
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 05:36 AM

Do you want me to work at your level and cut and paste from your own posts? Except I have the confidence to paste your whole post rather than a subjective couple of words out of context.

Keep cataloguing stories of how an idealised old world used to be, you seem happy doing that. Just don't dictate it as being the be all and end all of folk, that's all. Some of us get out, have a great time and immerse ourselves in the broad church that folk has evolved into, and especially get excited when hearing young people creating wonderful song without knowing nor caring for people they have never heard of nor feel the need to.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 05:59 AM

You damn well know how you have behaved Muskett
Your most objectionable behavior has been towards the older singers as far as I'm concerned.
You have persistently distorted what I have had to say - simple example
"I have been called a goose stepper, Gestapo, irrelevant, hater of folk music and lots more besides by Jim on the basis of laughing at his absurd notion that if you can copyright it, it isn't folk or if it doesn't fall into some weird 1954 category, it isn't folk, even though folk music as a genre took off after the committee had adjourned. "
I have argued with your ideas - I have never described you as a goose-stepper, or anything else for putting them forward
Your recent targeting of Travellers as potential thieves (spoon-stealers) I find the stuff that the B.N.P. is made of - a joke, said to shock..... whatever, it is a racist attack on a community that really could do without having to put up with this sort of shit.
As I have said, if one of us behaved as you have, you'd be among the first your on your box squealing "folk police" - with some justification.
You appear to be, like all bullies, happy to dish it out, but not ready to take it - 'heat, kitchen and all that'.
I''m not the only one to have commented on your unacceptable behaviour.
You think I'm wrong, fine, I quite like arguing with people who have something to say and are capable of framing their ideas into a coherent statement - so far, you'd have to take an O.U. course to come anywhere near that status.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 06:05 AM

"You appear to be, like all bullies, happy to dish it out, but not ready to take it - 'heat, kitchen and all that'".
Jim, you are the one that resorts to insults and bullying. here is one of many examples
Oh - nearly forgot - you talentless moron - since that's the way you choose to make your inane postings (or does that put my coming to West Cork a dangerous venture - was thinking maybe we'd spend Christmas there - just checking the bullet-proof windscreen!)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 06:27 AM

So I mentioned that you should count your spoons after diddycoys have visited.   That makes me a goose stepper does it? I said it about scousers and got a good laugh at a folk club once..


In Liverpool.

Get a life.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 06:32 AM

"Jim, you are the one that resorts to insults and bullying. here is one of many examples"
You have made around two dozen posting addressed on this subject, virtually every one of them framed abusively - your last point quotes me commenting on a veiled threat of physical violence if I ever come to Cork.
You have opened a thread on which you are abusing others in the same terms.
I am not involved in that one, yet you choose, in your cowardly fashion, to attack me behind my back.
You have truely earned the title of' The Skibbereen Stalker' - go away
Jim Carroll